FARMERFOCUS
FARMERFOCUS
Jim Bullock
Jim Bullock farms 283ha
(700 acres) in partnership
with his parents and brother
at Mill Farm, Guarlford,
Malvern, Worcs. Two-thirds
is rented or contract farmed,
the rest owned. Cropping is
winter wheat, winter oilseed
rape and winter beans
BUMPER harvests do not count until everything is dried and safely in store. If recent wet weather continues, what looked like being a bumper wheat crop in both yield and quality could well be far from that. And the last thing we need is a mountain of poor quality wheat to export; returns are so low on the continent that we could yet see farm-gate prices drop further here.
Just think how beneficial a bio-ethanol plant would be in mopping up our exportable feed wheat surplus. One would expect environmentalists to be busy lobbying government for such plants to be built, but I fear we will end up importing bio-fuels so our farmland can be return to some mythical past, covered by flower rich meadows oozing with wildlife…dream on.
There is also the argument that perhaps the supermarkets would rather not see an improvement in farm gate prices. And they have real power in high places.
Our harvest to date has been average with barleys yielding about 7.1t/ha (2.85t/acre). Due to a desperate shortage of storage space the crop has had to be shipped out at pathetic price. It will not feature in next years cropping.
Oilseed rape has been a bit of a mixed bag with both the best and worst crops we have had for years. Our best was late-drilled after wheat and yielded over 3.8t/ha (30 cwt/acre). The poor stuff did less than 2.5 t/ha (20cwt/acre) having been early-drilled after set-aside but waterlogged over winter and then frosted, leading to rotting.
With hindsight, min-till is not a good way to manage set-aside where sub-soils remain wet. Ploughing may have been a better option, or perhaps a cover crop that sucks moisture out from depth, restructures and maintains the biological processes in the soil. This years rotational set-aside, having had two hits with glyphosate to control grass weeds, had mustard direct-drilled on it in July. Wheat will follow. My one worry is that every slug in Worcs is now heading for the field. *